It Starts With A 'J'
by Miz. Jynx
Summary: The Joker has been in Arkham Asylum for six months. He's avoided revealing much of anything to the doctors there including his name, but everyone has a breaking point. A smile can only get you so far.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever, own the wonderous Joker or Arkham Asylum. They belong to DC comics.**

**Warnings: Depressing themes, references to murder and animal abuse.**

**It Starts With A 'J'**

He was shoved down into the stiff medal chair, leather straps in place around his left ankle and buckled across his torso, holding the straightjacket in place. He let out a strangled yelp when one of the security guards tightened the soft leather 'collar' around his neck, smirking at the inmates discomfort. The guards then left the room, leaving the patient with his therapist.

"Hello Mr. Joker, how are you feeling today?"

The Joker scoffed as best he could and glared daggers at the elderly man behind the desk in front of him. "I'd be better if I could breath."

Dr. Arkham frowned and called in an orderly to loosen the collar. Joker sucked in a grateful breath and squirmed in his straightjacket. "Any chance of getting me outa this one to?"

"I'm afraid not. It's mandatory for patient of your status to where a straightjacket when out of your cell, as well as the collar around your neck." His answer was mechanical, as if he'd recited it hundreds of times before. He probably has.

Now, 'collars' were an interesting accessory in Arkham, they were used to identify a patients status in the asylum. Blue ment docile, Green ment mischievous, Orange ment hostile prone, Red ment aggressive, White ment extremely dangerous, and Black ment unpredictable. Black was usually reserved for those with some kind of personality disorder like PPD, SPD, or AvPD.

The Jokers was White.

The only good thing about the collars was that visitors usually thought White was the docile color, oh what fun. He couldn't remember how many times his had been stained red. Joker giggled at the thought.

Dr. Arkham raised an eyebrow. "Care to share?"

Joker looked up and sent him a mischievous smirk. "Not really, you ahh, wouldn't get the **joke**."

"I can try." The doctor smiled calmly, expectantly.

The Joker giggled to himself, already thinking up a quick, time killing joke. "Oh-kay… So a man goes to his doctor, all crying and desperate and tells him: 'Please doc, I'm always so sad! I cry so often and feel so miserable! Is there anything you can do?' The doctor immediately begins thinking and, remembering the circus in town, comes up with the perfect treatment. 'I know!' says the doctor. 'The circus is in town, go see Pierrot the clown! He'll surly make you laugh thus eliminating your depression!' But the man just cries harder and exclaims: 'But Doc! I **am **Pierrot!' HAHAHAHA!" The madman then throws his head back and bursts into fits of laughter, his already large smile becoming wider and stretching the skin over his grisly scars.

Dr. Arkham merely looked on, a pitying frown on his face as he watched the man before him laugh and struggle to breath, tears beginning to stream down his face. It soon became a pitiful site indeed, wild laughter turned to uncontrollable sobs and hiccups as the younger man began to, of all things, cry.

A few minutes later found the Joker quite and calm, his head down shamefully while silent tears occasionally streamed down his reddened cheeks. Dr. Arkham looked on, smiling softly. His guess was it had been a long while since the young man had cried like that, if at all.

"Feel better?" He asked softly.

The Joker sniffed and curled up on himself as best he could being chained down. "'spose…"

"Good. Would you like to continue? Or would you prefer going back to your cell?"

Joker bit his lip. Continuing ment more questions and probably even more embarrassing moments, but going back now ment he'd have to face not only the security guards and orderlies who just **loved **to screw with him but the other inmates as well. Something told him walking out of there with flushed and tear streaked cheeks wouldn't be very intimidating.

"I-I think I'll stay." He mumbled.

Dr. Arkham struggled to keep back his excitement, finally they were getting somewhere! "That's a wonderful decision, what do you say we move you on to the activity portion of your therapy?"

Joker raised an eyebrow but kept his head down. Activity portion? He had never made it passed the oral examination, who knew there was an activity portion? "Uhh, sure doc…but, can I wash up first?"

This whole thing was seriously chipping away at his dignity.

*** * ***

"Just paint what you feel, no one will judge you." Mostly said for the benefit of those who severely **sucked **at art. Dr. Arkham sat in a medal chair a short ways away, clipboard in hand and smile in place.

Joker held the long wooden paintbrush loosely in his right hand, glancing at the doctor before looking back at the blank canvas before him. Normally, the large art room was occupied by an assortment of patients and their primary therapists but for the sake of the inmates very **lives **the doctors felt It'd be best to have the room empty when the Joker was in.

The Joker sighed and licked his lips, an annoying habit he knew but he couldn't help it, the scars were very bothersome. Never, ever in his life would he admit it but at that very moment, he was nervous. Dr. Arkham wasn't the only doctor in the room, no, he deemed it necessary for four others to join him. He was sure it had something to do with his sudden 'breakthrough', or whatever he had called it. 'It was a moment of weakness' Joker would think, and that's the **only** thing he allowed himself to think.

He glanced down to the small metal table beside him, eyeing the small assortment of colors he had at his disposal. The blonde scoffed, how did they expect anyone to paint anything with less than twelve colors?

Finally, he decided to wing it. He picked up a tube of blue and squirted most of it out onto the table into a neat, gooey little pile, doing the same for the orange, white, black, green, purple, and red. He dipped his brush in, starting with the blue and made a few messy streaks toward the bottom of the canvas. It almost looked like a water fall before he streaked the black through it, giving it a plaid-like pattern. He did the same with the red, lining it on the outside of the black.

Now it looked like the edge of a blue, black, and red plaid bedspread.

Okay, that was a start. He stuck his tongue out in concentration, slowly getting into the painting. The Joker hummed tunelessly as he swirled his brush in a nearby cup of water to rinse out the past colors and dipped it into the orange. Another couple of streaks found him staring at the crude outline of a cat.

…He could do better than that, better than 'crude'.

Using the edge of his fingernail, he straightened and smoothed out some edges on both the 'cat' and the bedspread. Better… but not good enough. More and more streaks and flicks of the brush and…**there**! **Now **it was looking like a cat!

Joker smiled proudly to himself, suddenly glad the canvas was facing away from the doctors, he didn't want them to see just yet. He looked over the picture, feeling something was missing. His eyes widened and he giggled to himself, dipping the brush first in black, then in white before wildly filling in the background a dark gray.

Almost…it still didn't look right.

"Hmm, aggh, something's missing…" He mumbled, scratching the side of his face with a paint stained hand.

"Is something wrong?" Dr. Arkham asked worriedly, not wanting the hostile man to suddenly become enraged over something mundane, which was known to happen.

"Oh cool it Doc, I'm thinkin' here…" The Joker never stopped glaring at the picture, slowly becoming frustrated with the project. Glancing down at the paints smeared around the table, he figured it out. The blob of purple he had set out was completely untouched, he'd soon fix that. Quickly rinsing the brush he smeared it in royal purple and gave one swift stroke of the brush across the painting.

The little orange cat now bore a proudly worn purple collar.

The Joker smiled proudly, though a bit wildly and dropped the brush on the table. "Hah! Done!"

Dr. Arkham snapped up from his seat followed by the others and made their way to the Joker, the canvas still out of site. "May we see?" the doctor asked carefully.

"Go for it." The Joker shrugged, still smiling and crossed his arms.

Each stepped forward and gazed in proud amazement at the painting. It was a bit rushed, that much was obvious, but all other if any flaws could be easily overlooked. Staring back at them with curious bright green eyes and thin white whiskers was a nice, orange little kitty with white stripes on its tail and head along with white boots and a single mitten. The purple collar complemented its eyes nicely and a slight smile shown from its black outlined lips, softly highlighted in red.

"Very nice! Do you have a name for it?" Dr. Arkham looked behind him to find the Joker was no longer there, but instead in front of the paints table, his back to the doctors and obscuring their view of whatever he was doing.

"Yeah, I got a name for him…" He turned around and hid something behind his back. He smiled and narrowed his eyes. "His name's Tomas."

Dr. Arkham and the others subtly stepped back in fear the madman had conceived a weapon. "Was Tomas a pet of yours?" The doctor asked carefully.

The Joker glanced to the painting, a small frown in place of the twisted smile. "Was…" He chuckled madly, slowly bringing the cup from the table to plain view. "but I killed him." A wild jerk of his arm and a flash of red later, the painting was ruined, drenched in the deep red paint that had been mixed with the little water that was left leaving a thin watery paste.

The cup had been dropped to the floor, the blonde man watching, disconnected, as the red dripped to the floor to add to the growing puddle that had spread over the grey concrete and most of his uniform in the splash back. All except Dr. Arkham had jumped back in fear and surprise and had pressed themselves against the wall when the Jokers arm had flung out.

In Dr. Arkhams mind, this was the best time if ever to ask what he had wanted to from the very moment the young man had been escorted into the asylum. He cautiously walked up to him, his clipboard griped tightly in both hands, and attempted to gain his attention. The Joker looked up, dirty blonde locks doing nothing to hide the pain and loneliness in his eyes.

"Joker…what's your name?" The doctors voice was calm, reassuring, curious. No one had ever made it this far with Joker in therapy in the six months he'd been there.

The young man winced slightly, scared lips contorting into a thoughtful frown. "I'm pretty sure…it starts with a 'J'."

**Authors Notes**

I'm pretty sure this will be a oneshot, I don't know, what do you think? I feel like it was rushed towards the end but the idea of what the Joker did while in the asylum had been gnawing at my brain for the past couple of days. Lol. X) So I just wanted to get the idea out.

**Please**, if you had enough time to **Read**, take a few seconds to **Review **as well! I really appreciate it!

Love and Straightjackets,

Miz. Jynx


	2. Chapter 2

**Blood**

"Hey, hey! Hold still while I'm tryin' to gut ya!" The Joker struggled to pin the screaming man down while he messily ripped away another chunk of flesh.

"Damn it! Now look what ya made me do!" the clown held up the jagged hunk of meat and hurled it at his victims face. The dyeing man screamed in agony and gagged over and over when more blood bubbled in his throat.

The Joker had been trying, unsuccessfully, to gut the overweight man for at least ten minutes but only managed to cut away chunks of raw, pink flesh. The man was pretty damn big after all, and compared to him the Joker looked like nothing more than a skinny kid. The Joker paused his actions for a second. He wasn't **that **skinny, was he? Well it wouldn't be surprising he mused, the damn asylum hardly feed him anymore. After that little incident with the cooks and all…

The man cried out in complete agony while layer after layer of fat and flesh was torn away to reveal rapidly bleeding organs, many of them with gaping holes in them from the psychopaths' efforts. He smiled widely and dug his knifeless hand into the fat mans gut, grabbing his liver and squeezing it until it looked something akin to ground beef.

"All this ripping and tearing could have been avoided if you'd just stay still but nooooo! You had to fight and wiggle like a whale-sized worm!" Joker growled and clawed at the still screaming mans lungs, leaving intact but with jagged, horrible red scratches in them where thin layers of flesh had been scraped off.

Finally, thankfully depending on who you were, the mans screams died down to a mere bloody gurgle and his shredded lungs shook and twitched in one last effort to suck in oxygen before the man laid still, dead and horribly mutilated.

The Joker shook with laughter for a good twelve and a half minutes before shifting himself off the red hunk of dead flesh, sliding over to a darker corner of the room and curling in on himself. He hid his face in his arms letting only his eyes remain visible and gazed over the brilliant red ocean of blood that had spread over a good expanse of the floor.

He hummed softly to himself and let his eyes fall on the bloodied scalpel he had used and left by the dead man. "This shouldn'ta happened'**a**. Nope, nope, it shouldn'ta." His mind was on the fritz he'd say, he didn't want to kill him. No, no never kill. Just play. A little prank, just to mess with him. He didn't want to **hurt **anyone.

"One thing leeeads to another aaand… **shink**!" He made a noise that one would assume was the sound of a blade cutting through air. No one could ever really tell. For they knew it could be his version of a bird call.

"Why'd you have to smile doc? You didn't have to smile. No one forced ya, some people just can't pull a smile off is all. Your one of those people." He licked his lips. "**Were **one of those people."

He shivered, the cold blood from his cloths seeping onto his skin was giving him chills. The blood had already dried on his hands leaving them stiff and smooth, the blood on his face still moist and sticky. Contrary to extremely popular belief, he didn't really like blood. Well, he likedit, but he didn't **like **it.

Blood on a person was funny, blood spattered around a room was decorative, blood on him was tolerable, but blood on his hands was just nasty. That's why he wore gloves, so he didn't have to **feel **the hot gooey stuff when he ripped someone open or sliced them up. When it was fresh it made it difficult to hold his knife steady and when it dried…ugh. He stared down at his hands, disgustedly eyeing the now brown gunk that stuck to his skin and clotted the underside of his nails.

He almost gagged. He **hated **the feeling of blood on his hands.

He almost growled. It wasn't **his **fault the guy couldn't smile right.

He almost cried. He was alone again.

Foot steps and shouts behind the door, down the hall. Security guards most likely, along with some orderlies and maybe a nurse or two. Dr. Arkham wouldn't like this, he specifically told him **no killing**. One careless guard later eight people died, not counting the fat man.

His therapist. 15th therapist actually.

Someone was jiggling the door handle…now they were banging on the door…he was pretty sure they were yelling, he couldn't really tell at that moment. He didn't care enough to listen. He stopped caring a while ago, how long remains to be discovered for even he didn't know. It might have been around the time he broke down in front of Arkham. Yeah, that sounded about right.

At some point they must've gotten in, because Joker didn't remember strapping himself into a straightjacket, nor did he recall shooting himself with a tranquilizer gun. Then again, it wasn't **completely **impossible.

Out the door and down the hall, all blurred and painful.

In his cell, on his floor, he lay still. His hands still covered in sickening dry blood. This time he did cry, because at that moment, he'd give anything to wash the blood from his hands.

**Authors Notes**

I'm not entirely sure why I wrote this, It was a spur of the moment thing.

Please **Review!**

Love and Straightjackets,

Miz. Jynx


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: If I owned them, Joker/Scarecrow/Batman would be cannon. It's obvious I don't.**

**Warning: Depressing themes, mention of murder, blood, and light torture.**

***Part three of mini series "It Starts With A 'J'"***

**Confined**

**Chapter 1**

**Solitary Confinement**

"Aggh, god I'm starving! Where the bloody tofu is lunch?!" Joker let loose a feral growl and pounded on the door with his bare feet until they were bloody and sore.

The orderlies were ignoring him, again.

Exhausted, out of breath, and utterly famished, the Joker lay back on the padded gray floor and attempted to get comfortable in the suffocating off-white straightjacket. He wouldn't be getting fed today, he knew. Not surprisingly, he couldn't remember the last time he ate, but it had to be longer than three days. Out of the six he'd been there at least.

Solitary confinement really sucked.

Though it wasn't all bad, he still-no. Sometimes he-wait, no, that was confiscated. But occasionally he-no, nope, the straightjacket prevented that. Okay so it was all that bad, and the lack of nourishment just made it worse.

"I'll have a pizza-wait, no, a turkey-no, no, a giant blood sausage in an extra quadruple large tortilla roll!" he whimpered when another painful growl erupted from his empty belly, he was sure it had begun to eat itself.

He squeezed his eyes shut and hastily began suckling on his scars, an action that had succeeded in calming him many times before. It had the desired effect; his thumping heart slowed and the pain in his stomach faded into a slight burning throb.

Thinking. That's all there was to do, so he did. He thought about the six wasted months he'd been there, in the asylum. He thought about his therapy, and his therapists. He thought about Dr. Greenun, the mutilated fat man that now lay in the asylums dank morgue, rotting and dripping.

Joker groaned and turned on his side, his body squeezed into a loose ball. Dirty, he felt so dirty. Dirty, alone, and starving to death like a sick puppy nobody wanted. At least he had a collar. Never would be admit it, he wouldn't even allow himself to **think **it in the presence of others, but he kind of liked the collars. They made him feel…wanted. Dogs had collars, and they had families, people who loved them. Tomas had a collar, now he's dead. Did they also guarantee death?

"Home is where the suffering is." The Joker whispered to himself, his favorite quote.

It was cold in the cell, the six inch thick cement walls doing almost nothing to protect against Gotham's early wither cold. No window, no way to deduct how much time has passed, how long he's slept or lain awake in a miserable daze.

"Nggh, hungry…" Just a breath of a word, barely spoken, half asleep.

Too much has happened, too fast, too painful.

By the time the door clanged open, a day later, he was out cold. In a starvation induced coma.

**AUTHORS NOTES**

Okay, that was depressing, lol. Written during school and I swear it looked longer on notebook paper. Heh, I guess not. There will be a second part to this since it's so short and will be posted shortly. I hope you enjoyed!

Please **Review!**

Love and Straightjackets,

Miz. Jynx


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: If I owned them, Joker/Scarecrow/Batman would be cannon. It's obvious I don't.**

**Warning: Depressing themes, mention of murder, blood, and light torture.**

***Part three of mini series "It Starts With A 'J'"***

**Confined**

**Chapter 2**

**Clinical Confinement**

A metal table crashed to the floor with a sharp clang, the nurse who had shoved her way passed it in haste already sobbing into the phone. "P-please, hurry! …No, no, I did what you asked, I didn't know he would- But he's going to kill me!" The tacky bright makeup smeared around her face clashed horribly with her red, puffy eyes, tears still streaming down her wet cheeks as she pleaded with the person on the other end of the line.

She jumped at a loud crash on the other side of the room, dropping the phone in her terror. The plastic device cracked upon contact with the gray concrete and slid under a low hospital bed. The terrified woman held her shaking hands to her face and bit her knuckles in an effort to stifle her loud sobs.

The man across the room ripped the feeding tube from his throat in a fit of irrational rage, causing him to double over in pain and vomit all over the littered floor. He growled and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, glaring at the shaking woman across the room as the impulse to literally rip her to shreds became stronger with each passing second. "Come ooon, where's that lovely little smile? Where's the **pity **you so graciously held for me ~cough~ when I was asleep? Hmmm?"

Hunched over with a hand gripping his aching stomach, he only managed a few limped steps before a sudden loss of breath forced him to the ground. His head was spinning in the fog that had never cleared from it while another jab of pain caused a second involuntary loss of his lunch, so to speak. He pushed a few slightly greasy strands of dirty blonde hair from his pale face and scanned the room for the frantic nurse.

She was walking towards him, slow and cautious with wide reddened eyes. "P-please, calm down. I-I-I promise nobody will hurt you." She clenched her shaking fists and attempted to glare.

"HAH! Hurt **me**?! You should be more worried about what I'm about to do to you hunny." Joker growled resentfully. He dragged himself from the nasty floor and stumbled towards the poor nurse, her brief bout of bravery shattering at the sight of the psychotic man drawing nearer. "I'll fucking **SKIN **YOU LAYER BY LAYER!" He screamed, his voice horse and filled with unimaginable hate. The unlucky nurse would pay for what the world had done to him, her and every other fucking person in that asylum.

"RESTRAIN HIM!"

"GET THE TRANQS!

"HOLD HIM DOWN!"

The security guards burst into the room with a sharp 'bang' of the doors, each wielding billy-clubs and hidden smiles. Oh how he would be beaten that night, bruises littering his torso and arms, one leg broken and jaw cracked. Though that didn't stop the Joker from ripping one guards throat out with his teeth.

He spent the night in his cell dosed with enough tranquilizers to knock out a horse and a poorly applied cast on his right leg. Yes he'd be fine in a month or so, but until then he remained in his cell a majority of the time. His newly scheduled sessions with Dr. Arkham would be canceled for the time it took for him to recover.

And they had been so close, hadn't they?

**Authors Notes**

Neyah. Not my best work, but it continues the little series along doesn't it. ^^' I hope you enjoyed reading this, cause I was pretty much neutral about writing it. Lol.

Love and Straightjackets,

Miz. Jynx


	5. Chapter 5

********

Disclaimer: If I owned them, Joker/Scarecrow/Batman would be cannon. It's obvious I don't.

**The Tongue that Speaks Latin, Hates Pepto-Bismol**

"Mr. Joker?"

"…"

"Mr…Mr. Joker?"

"…Mmm…"

Someone was shaking him…

"**Mr. Joker**?"

Why were they shaking him? He wanted to tell them to stop, to leave him alone…

A sigh. "Mr. Joker please wake up!"

…to let him sleep for fucks sake!

"Mmm?" He peeked one eye open and glared at the source of the disturbance, a white haired, irritatingly

pleasant looking man. "Whaaaat?" He groaned groggily, a bit more than a 'hint' of aggravation in his scratchy voice.

The eerily familiar man sighed in what Joker assumed was relief and smiled an **extremely** irritating smile. "Good, good, you haven't gone into another coma. His eyes smiled with him. By god did he know how to irk.

Joker glared and attempted to sit up despite his straightjacket. Success. He suddenly felt sick, his eyes watering and his face heating up as the effort to avoid puking all over himself became harder by the millisecond. The man was saying something with that vexing little smile etched onto his face but the Joker couldn't hear him. He was curious to the mystery mans presence of course, but he literally **couldn't **hear him. He was solely focused on the sound of his own bile accompanied by who knows what lurching within his stomach and rising against normal traffic up his throat, and by **god **did that taste horrible.

Lightheaded, momentarily miserable, and somewhat confused, the Joker only had one choice to make before he spewed. And that was **whether **to spew. The man suddenly stopped talking and turned his attention to the pale, more than usual, man below him, a small feeling of foreboding rising in his gullet.

"Mr…Mr. Joker? Are you alright?" He asked, tentatively reaching a rough hand to the Joker's slightly trembling shoulder. The younger man seemed to be struggling with something he noted with concerned curiosity.

"Mr. Joker?"

Steaming hot, gooey, oatmeal textured muck slide up his throat and into the back of his throat before being forced back down the same way, leaving a foul tasting sticky trail in its retreat. Joker opened his mouth and let a putrid smelling belch escape his mouth, a shutter running up and down his spine as he sucked in a lungful of sickly sweet air.

"Holy bat shit…" He groaned and set his blurry gaze on the white haired man now standing a foot or so away, his identity only now becoming evident.

"Ahhh…" he raised a blonde eyebrow and slapped on a drunk grin. "What's up doc?"

* * *

"Here." Dr. Arkham handed him a feather light plastic toothbrush and an unmarked tube of plain toothpaste. The Joker looked at him the same way same way a four year old would when handed a sudoku puzzle. And just like a four year old, the Joker found something other than its intended use for it when Dr. Arkham turned his back to retrieve a cup of what he assumed was Listerine.

When the good doctor turned back around he was more than surprised to see not only his most puzzling patient gone, but also a very neat message scrawled with the white toothpaste on the mirror above the running sink.

_Verto amicus._

Dr. Arkham raised a white eyebrow in confusion before a sudden thought hit him. _It's Latin! _Indeed, the message was written in Latin, a language the doctor new very well. Therefore it was only seconds before the translation flew through his mind.

_Turn around friend._

Suddenly struck with a jolt of fear, the doctor whipped around, all kinds of unpleasant thoughts of how the Joker could have conceived a weapon out of the toothbrush or just as likely, the tube of toothpaste. So, it was only natural that he was struck near speechless when he found the Joker innocently brushing his teeth and swinging his white clothed legs back and forth on the table Dr. Arkham had retrieved the mouthwash from.

Leaning on his right arm and lazily brushing with his left, Joker looked down at his therapist and smiled through a mouthful of white foam before spitting the tasteless annoyance out of his mouth and into the sink across from him. He flicked the toothbrush in the same direction. He leaned down, dirty blond locks falling into his face, and looked into his therapists light brown eyes.

"**Es** vos meus amicus?"

He snatched the cup from the speechless mans hand and emptied it into his mouth, hopping off the table and waltzing, bare footed yet again, to the oblivious orderly by the door and spat the tingly blue liquid onto the mans standard white shirt.

"Hey! God damn it!"

"Insane."

The man sighed in annoyance and pulled his shirt as far away from his skin as possible. The Joker simply slapped on a gleefully sinister smile and threw open the bathroom doors to reveal the nurses and orderlies waiting for him in the hallway on the other side. He smirked at their nervous faces.

"Where's my straightjacket!"

_* * *_

"Drink it Joker."

"No!"

"Damn it Joker, stop acting like a child! Just drink the damn thing!" The completely frustrated nurse shoved a small cup of pink liquid into the Joker's face, the rim of which touching his lips and slowly pouring the questionable looking gunk into his mouth. Had it not been held open by two very annoyed orderlies he would have immediately spit the junk out, clamped his lips shut, and kicked the disheveled nurse right in the kisser. Unfortunately, he found himself helpless to stop the thick pink goo from sliding down his burning throat, granting unwanted quick relief.

After a slap to the back of his head and the finger from the nurse behind his back, he was led out of the med ward and up two floors via elevator, arriving at Dr. Arkhams' office forty minutes later. They would have arrived a half an hour earlier had the mischievous clown not pressed every single button on the elevator panel with his foot, including the emergency stop and shutdown device.

Dr. Arkham glanced up from the paperwork he had been idly staring at and frowned in confusion as the bound clown was once again shoved onto the stiff metal chair across his desk. He watched with a pity that grew every day as the young mans left leg was yet again held firmly in place as a worn leather strap was tightened around his ankle. A metal buckle clicked to prevent any movement, or circulation.

In an instant the gruff orderlies were gone, leaving only Dr. Arkham and his most puzzling patient in the room together. Alone. Again.

How many sessions were they up to?

_6 months_

_4 weeks per month_

_3 sessions per week…_

_72 sessions?_

_Not counting the little tid-bit of time it took for my leg and jaw to heal… Wait, how long has it been?_

The Joker looked up, he immediately had Dr. Arkhams full attention. "Doctor Arkham…would you ah, be so kind as to tell me how long I spent with my leg in a hunk of plaster and fiberglass?" He asked in an unintentionally low whisper. It seemed it was getting harder to focus as the days went by.

Dr. Arkham hesitated for a few seconds, not wanting the conversation to stray too far from what he really wanted to speak about. "Thirteen weeks in total. You have been kept sedated for your own protection while your leg and jaw were set and healed. The extra week was insurance."

"So why'd ya think I was in a coma?"

"Well you were kept under for so long, I was worried-"

"Don't be."

There was a short moment of silence, the sound of the doctors pen scrit-scratching the paper the only thing to fill the air. He stopped, put the pen down and stared at the self proclaimed clown with scrutinizing eyes, quietly folding his hands together as he studied younger man.

"What did you mean?"

Joker raised an eyebrow.

"Earlier, when you were brushing your teeth, what did you mean?"

The Joker's expressions were like completely separate, difficult moves to a dance. He first smirked, then frowned, scowled, then settled on a blank stare at his doctor. If no one could smile like the Joker than certainly no one pulled off apathy like him.

"**Es** vos meus amicus?" He asked for the second time that day, one more than he had both expected and thought necessary.

"I had no idea you spoke Latin." Stated the doctor calmly.

"I dabble." He mumbled.

"I know what you said, but I don't understand it. What is it you mean?"

"It's a yes or no question, what more could I mean?" The blond growled in irritation.

"It has to be more than that, you wouldn't ask-"

"YOU DOCTORS and your OVERANALYZING!" The Joker spoke loudly and suddenly, cutting off and halting his therapists words. "Just answer the damn question before I send myself to the med ward! I swear sometimes talking to you makes me want to gnaw on my thigh for about an hour." He rolled his eyes and glared at the mildly stunned man across from him.

Dr. Arkham closed his mouth and gathered his thoughts, running the seemingly simple question over and over in his head. Maybe he **was **overanalyzing things, maybe a simple 'yes' or 'no' would solve this small mystery.

"Etiam"

* * *

_Today was disgusting. Pepto-Bismol tastes like shit, I'd choose the taste of my own bile over that pink muck any day. They don't see how gross it is. That 'medicine' is nothing but a bottle of liquefied baby gums. Maybe I'll tell the doc that next session, that'll get weird look. Heh, until I lose the straightjacket, things wont be much fun._

"_Etiam."_

_That means yes. Why did he say yes? He couldn't possibly consider himself…could he? Yankee Doodle went to town, riding on a horsey! My minds leaving me, I should stay up tonight. If I sleep like this I might go Hannibal Lector on someone tomorrow._

_But is that really a bad thing? _

_I __**am**__ hungry._

_Heh ha, haha! Eye have an eye-dee-ah! HahaAHAHAA!_

**Authors Notes**

Ooo that was fun to write, and I'm so raring to write the next chapter. That one will be nice and fun, rest assured.

Lets take that straightjacket off now, shall we?

Love and Unbuckled Straightjackets,

Miz. Jynx


End file.
